Mike and I have been having lots of fun with SIRI, the new voice assistant on our iPhones. Between asking her what she’s wearing, requesting that she beam us up or tell us a joke, and telling her we need to hide a body, it’s been hugely entertaining.

But it can be dangerous, too …

I’m in the kitchen cooking dinner and I hear Mike say, “Tell Lissa ‘You’re a pretty kitty.’ ” I smile and look forward to the text message that will pop up on my phone, only to be confused by Mike busting out laughing. Snorting and chuckling, he comes over, phone in hand.

What do you do when your husband is busy fighting AT&T, starving, and can’t eat dinner yet?

You make him an amuse-bouche with a (roughly) heart-shaped pan-seared polenta cake topped with sausage and fennel ragout!

Thanks to Mike, and his willingness to spend literally HOURS either arguing or on hold for a supervisor, my new phone got rescued from backorder (“21-28 days”) and will be here this afternoon. He’s the bestest!!!

The Palestinian Hamas movement and Israel have reached an agreement with Egyptian mediation to free captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for hundreds of prisoners in Israeli jails, Hamas officials said. [snip]

The deal was previously reported by Al Arabiya, which said Israel had agreed to free 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Shalit. Musa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, said reports that an agreement had been struck were true, without giving further details.

Normally this would be one of those small-picture-big-picture things. The small picture is the pain and suffering of soldier Shalit, his loved ones and his friends. I will not pretend I can imagine how awful his captivity has been or how much pain he and his have been through. But the big picture is simply this: By releasing 1000 Hamas thugs from jail, Israel puts dangerous people back into circulation and hugely increases the incentive to capture (or kidnap) Israeli soldiers.

… or do they? On further reflection, does anyone think Hamas thugs need MORE encouragement to capture Israeli soldiers, if they can? Does anyone disagree that, regardless of whether Gilad Shalit is traded, Hamas goons would love to and try hard to capture Israeli soldiers?

So maybe Shalit (finally) being freed would be something we could celebrate. What do you think?

Yay!!! Bought it refurb’d from Woot and I am SO SO pleased with this sucker. (Yes, that pun was terrible. No, I’m not ashamed.) It corners like a DREAM — I actually thought it was one of their ball vacuums until I bent down and looked. And the cleaning power … It makes my old Bissel look like a crippled old nag.